Evening Standard comment: Sort out the testing and messaging mess | More adopters please

The unhappy fact that it was impossible to book a coronavirus test in London when the Evening Standard tried as part of an investigation published today will regrettably come as little surprise to many of our readers, given the chaos that has been engulfing the testing system over recent days.

That doesn’t make the problem any less serious though, because with infection rates rising in the capital, and even more sharply in some other parts of the country, it’s imperative that people who fear they have symptoms are able to be checked as quickly as possible so that they can self-isolate and their contacts can be traced and asked to do the same.

In the absence of a vaccine, which is still months away at best, that’s the only effective way to stop infections spreading.

It’s also critical to keeping the economy going and ensuring that only those adults and children who need to be self-isolating, and thus staying away from work or school, do so, rather than forcing large numbers of others to follow the same course on a precautionary basis simply because there’s no way for them to find out whether they’re infectious or not.

The Prime Minister says, for example, that schools shouldn’t send whole classes or pupil “bubbles” home unless a child has had a positive test, but how on Earth can this work if there’s nowhere for them to be tested? It’s a shambles.

The principal cause of the mess is, of course, organisational and administrative failure by the Government and those tasked with delivering the system. But what’s not helping either, as the Evening Standard has made clear repeatedly during the pandemic, is the lack of clear, consistent messaging from ministers.

The point that a snuffle and runny nose is the symptom of a cold, not coronavirus — emphasised today by the King’s College London academic Professor Tim Spector, who operates a valuable Covid symptom tracking app — should be communicated much more clearly by ministers and their public health officials to stop people going for tests, or children being sent home, unnecessarily.

Instead, what we get is flip-flopping and confusion, of which today’s latest Government reverse on snitching on neighbours, which Boris Johnson now says should only happen if they’re having “animal house” parties with hot tubs, is just the latest example.

The prospect of a second national lockdown, which must be avoided if possible, was being quashed today by ministers.

But if London and the country as a whole is to overcome the current spike in infections and prevent further restrictions, the Government, from the Prime Minister down, must end the testing chaos and get a grip of its message too.

More adopters please

The charity Coram reports a big jump in enquiries by Londoners wanting to adopt, which it attributes to an increased focus on the family during lockdown.

It’s a rare piece of good news from the pandemic, but more than 200 children in the capital still await new parents.

We salute the adopters who’ve already come forward and hope that more do the same over the months to come.